My Cinnamon GCC is just three and one half months old and I have had her only a week. The pet store had her on some fruity coloured pellets and millet. Since getting her, I have been feeding her the fruity pellets mixed with Zupreem and Harrison's with the intent of stopping the fruity pellets altogether.

My parrotlet gets soaked and sprouted grains and chopped veggies every morning along with Harrison's mash freely fed- in a different dish of course. (He won't eat pellets)

The grains are bought at an organic grocery and consist of oat groats, whole brown rice, quinoa, spelt, whole hulled barley, rye and whatever other whole grains are available. I prepare it by soaking them overnight and draining and rinsing. I put them in a strainer over a bowl that is covered with a small plate and let them sit at room temperature until they sprout, which is usually about a day. They are rinsed during that time. I then put them in the fridge and rinse them before feeding. I put several veggies ( usually kale, zuccini, whole sugar snap peas, carrots, sweet potato, sometimes red pepper) in a small chopper and chop them up and in his dish I put the grains and veggies together. After a few hours, I take that away and give him some birdie bread ( made with Harrisons mash, chopped carrots and zucchini, pumpkin puree, flax seed, organic or free range egg-no shell).

Since getting the GCC, I have been feeding it the same combination of veggies and grains but I add a tiny bit of water and put in the microwave to cook them a bit for a couple of minutes then cool it completely in the freezer before feeding. She gets her pellet combination freely fed in a separate dish. After a few hours (3 to 4), I take the veggies and grain combination away and replace with pellets.

About supper time I take her out and feed her some fruit. We have tried mango, pomegranate and blueberry so far.

Today, I had her out of her cage for her veggies since it is my day off and I had lots of the time to spend with her. She had her veggies raw for the first time and I noticed that her poo's were immediately watery and the colour of the veggies she had eaten - red pepper and carrots.

I know that birds will have poo's the colour of their food and have seen it with fruit etc but this seemed rather dramatic.

The green cheek also gets millet freely fed as she is still very young but she is a good eater and does not turn her beak up at anything she is given. I have not started her on the birdie bread yet.

This is rather long but I wanted to give a good background on the birds' diet. Any suggestions for the gcc or does anyone think that her poo's are unusual?

This only happens immediately after getting fresh veggies or fruit and her poo is normal at other times.

By the way she has not been sexed yet so I do not know if she is actually a she or not.

It sounds fine to me. After you give birds fruits, their poos become watery, and if they are getting too little water, their poos will look very dark. I'm sure it's not abnormal for them to look similar to the other foods they eat, too. You seem to be doing a lot to eensure your birds are eating healthy. Good job.

Jackie,
My green cheek is seven months old. Her poohs do NOT change color and consistency that quickly. I'm trying to remember when she was younger, though. Like your green cheek, she was also weaned onto colored pellets. This is the best I can remember about her poohs at that age and when she was eating colored pellets:

She really does not prefer colored pellets, so when she was at the store and they were offered in a mix with the natural pellets, she would pick out and eat all of the natural pellets first. Then she would eat all of the yellow pellets. Last, she would finally eat the brighter colored pellets if there was nothing else to pick at. Therefore, there were many times when she had these really brightly colored poohs, but it was because she was finally forcing herself to eat the colored pellets.

Now, Shira only gets natural pellets, either organic or sometimes she still gets Zupreem natural pellets. I do not really notice that her poohs ever get as brightly red and orange as they did when she would force herself to eat those colored pellets.

So here is my supposition, and it is only that. Perhaps the color change was in response to some of the colored pellets that your conure already had in her system instead of because of the fruit she had just consumed. It may simply have seemed that the color was from the fruit.

I will tell you that Shira's poohs CAN change from huge to small and well formed to watery in a very few minutes. It wouldn't bother me if her pooh was mostly solid one minute and very watery the next time. That is normal.

A dramatic change in color that fast that definitely came from eating fruit only a few minutes earlier would really concern me, but my thought on that is that the change in color came from the colored pellets, since you are still weaning her off of them and she still has them sometimes. DO watch, if you think food is going through her too fast, for consistency. If it is coming through undigested, you'll see parts of the food itself.

Sorry I wasn't on here sooner to answer this question, because if you are anything like me you have been worrying. I am a big worry wart when it comes to my birds pooh.